


All The Things She Said

by Alexandria (heartfullofelves)



Category: Northern Exposure
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-18
Updated: 2013-12-18
Packaged: 2018-01-25 13:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1650818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heartfullofelves/pseuds/Alexandria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maggie flies to New York after Joel left, because she couldn't let him go. Joel is about to go on holiday but he cancels his plans to spend time with her instead. Set after The Quest, but before Maggie starts seeing Chris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Things She Said

Maggie’s plane touches down finally. She’s here, she’s made it. Who would’ve thought she’d come to New York, voluntarily? Not Maggie, that’s for sure.

As she waits for her bag, she ponders her decision to come. As soon as Joel left Cicely to come home, she knew that she couldn’t let him go. When she thought about why that was, she realised that maybe – just maybe – he was the love of her life. Now, as she’s in Joel’s hometown, she still isn’t sure. It will be different when she sees him, she decides.

She picks up her bag from the carousel and makes her way through arrivals, looking for a payphone so she can call a taxi. She has his address in her pocket, but she also has a backup booking at a cheap hotel, in case he rejects her. He doesn’t know that she’s here to see him. She books a taxi to take her to his place anyway.

* * *

 

Joel is carrying both a duffel bag and a suitcase. He’s about to go on holiday for the weekend, to sunny Florida. He’s been busy getting back into the swing of things, now that he’s got work at a clinic that he is actually _not_ obliged to work for just so he can fulfil a contract. He thought he deserved a break, so he booked a one-man vacation in Orlando.

Joel is walking towards the entrance to the terminal when he spots a woman walking in the opposite direction, i.e. towards him. From this distance all he can see is that she has fairly short brown hair, and is slim, and neither tall nor short. His heart skips a beat – could it be her? _No, of course not!_ His ever so logical brain tells him. _That would be crazy._ He’s just seeing what he wants to see.

Until she gets closer. And he sees that it _is_ her.

“Maggie?” he calls out in disbelief.

Her mouth drops open. “Joel!”

She rushes towards him and they both drop their bags, Joel’s two to her one, and wrap their arms around each other. For a moment they stand there, Maggie’s head buried into his shoulder.

After their moment is over, they pull apart, still holding onto each other’s arms.

“What are you doing here?” they ask at the same time.

“I came to see you,” explains Maggie.

“I was about to go to Florida for the weekend,” explains Joel.

“Oh,” says Maggie.

“But since you’re here,” he says, considering his options, “why don’t we just go back to mine so we can catch up?”

“I’d like that,” she grins, gazing at him. “I ordered a cab, so it shouldn’t be far off.”

He grins back at her. “I’ll cancel my ticket then. Come inside with me?”

So the two of them go inside the airport terminal so Joel can cancel his ticket. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get a refund, but he doesn’t care about the money, because she’s here. Right here, right now, beside him in New York.

When that’s done they hurry to the taxi stand and find the cab. Joel gives directions to his place, while Maggie pretends that she hasn’t got his address. He doesn’t need to know how she tracked him down; it would only inflate his ego.

He remembers all the things she said to him just before he left Cicely a few months ago. In particular he remembers what she said about how she always used to wonder how, in a world with billions of people, you meet the right ones. He doesn’t know what stroke of luck lead to him meeting Maggie, but he knows that he wouldn’t go back and change it. Five years serving his “sentence” in Alaska was worth it, because it meant he got to meet the most wonderful woman in the world.

She notices him smiling to himself, looking through the window. “What are you thinking about?” she asks, jolting him from his thoughts.

“Oh, nothing.”

“Come _on_ , Fleischman, you can tell me!”

He sighs, but he’s not annoyed, not really. “I was thinking about you, and how lucky I am to have met you.”

She gives him a playful punch on the arm. “Yeah right, Fleischman. You, being sentimental? You must’ve really changed.”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you the whole time I was in Manonash – that I _have_ changed. I don’t know why, but isn’t it a good thing?”

“Yeah. It is.” And she puts her hand on his shoulder.

For the rest of the journey they don’t speak, content just to be in the other one’s presence. The taxi stops in front of an apartment building. They get out, each paying for half the fare. They go up to his apartment, which has a view.

Of other multi-storey apartment blocks.

Maggie tells herself to stop it. This is the city Joel loves, the city he has always wanted to live in. After five years she should know not to judge him because of it.

He shows her around the place, not that there’s much just see – just a kitchen, bathroom, lounge, bedroom, and balcony. He then invites her to sit on the couch, and offers her a tea of coffee. She asks for a tea. It was a very long flight, and the last thing she needs is caffeine. Over cups of tea they talk about how they’re doing. Joel has a good job, this apartment, a social life, and he has joined a golf club. Maggie is now into real estate, and is the mayor of Cicely, but most of all, she is still a bush pilot. He sees that she hasn’t changed at all, not one bit.

At one point he suggests that they order in a Chinese, and they eat that in front of the TV. He asks if she wants to stay the night, and she does. When he asks whether she wants to sleep on the uncomfortable couch, or in the double bed with high thread count sheets, she answers with a passionate kiss.

They manage to both complete their toilette before removing each other’s clothes and falling onto the bed. For the first time in many months, Joel feels able to do this. He has a stable job, a stable career, his own apartment. He hasn’t felt this comfortable in years. His life is not lacking a single thing, and he knows that he can make love to her, and do it _right_.

So he does, and it’s the best sex they’ve ever had, better even than that time in the barn, and that time was amazing. Maggie feels a bit teary afterwards, as she’s never felt so loved, and never been so sure of her own feelings. They cuddle, still wanting the intimacy of before.

“So tell me why you really came to New York,” he murmurs after a while.

“Because,” she whispers back, “as soon as you left, I felt like a part of me was missing. It didn’t take me long to realise that I need you around.”

“I love you,” he tells her for the first time, and he gives that grin that always made her heart flutter.

“I love you,” she smiles back.


End file.
